Iran's Struggles on Four Fronts—And Soon, Maybe a Fifth

Nearly twelve months after Iran’s diplomatic victory with the JCPOA, Tehran is still embroiled in four different major regional conflicts, and a fifth may soon break out. Two of the current fights, led by its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), are “hot” ones: against opposition and Islamist groups in Syria and against ISIS in Iraq. The other two are “colder” ones: a regional feud with Saudi Arabia and efforts against Israel in southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights, which are increasingly shaped by the Syrian civil war. Also emerging is the concern about the new ISIS threat in Afghanistan. How is Iran doing on each front? The short answer: it is looking rough in the near term, but there may be light on the horizon.

In Syria, Iran has expended much, but has relatively little to show in return. Growing numbers of the embedded IRGC officers guiding the Syrian and regional militia forces (and now even special forces from the Iranian regular army) are dying, most notoriously in the unrelenting fighting south of Aleppo around the town of Khan Touman, where sixteen IRGC soldiers were killed on May 6 and another twenty-two have been killed since. Each new push by the IRGC and its partners brings temporary success for Assad’s forces, only to be met by renewed resistance from the opposition and a return to grinding stalemate.

Given setbacks for proregime forces, Iran and its allies are likely looking at an increasingly powerful and consolidated al-Qaeda and Jabhat al Nusra–led Islamist grouping dominating eastern Syria as ISIS’s hold fades. Russia will likely re-up its direct military intervention, but even with that help, Tehran will be forced to look at ever costlier investment to preserve Assad.

The one benefit Iran has reaped from its sacrifices in Syria is a region-wide army of Shia and local militias stretching from Lebanon to Iraq and into South Asia, as well as increasing hybrid-warfare capabilities that can integrate drones and other conventional capacities into IRGC-led unconventional units. This force born out of adversity in Syria—with Lebanese Hezbollah as its most prominent component—will be a potent tool in asserting Iran’s influence throughout in the Middle East. Following the devastating 2006 conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, all sides have spent the last decade deterred from repeat escalation. Lebanese Hezbollah continues to be under unprecedented pressure fighting for President Assad in Syria, but it will emerge from this conflict with capabilities and experiences that will only make it stronger.

In Iraq, Iran’s proxies and Shia militias are making progress against ISIS, but they cannot defeat the extremist group alone. In Syria, Iran’s army relies on Russian airpower. In Iraq, the militias must depend on more elite Iraqi Army units backed up by U.S. airpower to lead the anti-ISIS campaigns. This reality is embarrassing and frustrating for the groups’ leadership. Iran’s heavy hand in the current fight is stoking not only deeper fear and resentment among Iraqi Sunnis along the front lines in Fallujah and elsewhere, but it also exacerbating intra-Shia rivalries among those militias that are ideologically aligned with Iran, like Asa’ib Ahl al Haq, and those that are more nationalistic, such as the Popular Mobilization Forces and the Peace Companies guided by Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr.

Tehran’s most frequent foreign-policy blind spot remains underestimating the degree to which its aggressive regional activities spur sectarian and ethnic backlash. If it can avoid triggering further Sunni radicalization, an internal Shia civil war, and the potential breakup of the country, however, the Islamic Republic is likely in good shape to continue its “Iranianization” of Iraqi security and political structures.

Another huge question mark for the Iranian leadership is how far the tensions with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states will escalate. Even as both Riyadh and Tehran are looking to deescalate the conflict in Yemen, Bahrain’s revocation of citizenship for its most prominent Shia cleric has resulted in implied threats by the IRGC and other leaders to stir up insurrection among the island’s Shia majority. If that happens to a large enough scale, Saudi Arabia could intervene into Bahrain again like it did in 2011; though how Iran would respond is uncertain.